Everyone deserves a decent and dignified life, but for too many that is out of reach. It doesn’t have to be this way: insecurity and unaffordability are not inevitable or natural. Our collective imagination and effort can build a world of genuine security and abundance. A society where all our basic needs are met; where life’s essentials are affordable and we all have a meaningful stake and a say. That is not just decarbonised but democratised. Building that world requires us recognising — and reimagining — the foundational role of ownership and property in shaping the structure and operation of our economy.

Common Wealth exists to serve that goal: to help us understand how ownership is inseparable from the crises and opportunities we face today and why its transformation is the precondition for building better tomorrow. Because it’s only by redesigning how our economy is owned — from energy to housing, businesses to utilities — that we can create the future we all deserve.

Founded in 2019, Common Wealth is a think tank operating across the UK and US. We work with a variety of organisations from community and grassroots groups to national and international policymakers, combining rigorous analysis and research with bold ideas for change.

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People

Mathew Lawrence

Director

Mathew is Common Wealth’s Founder and Director. Prior to founding Common Wealth, he was a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Public Policy Research, working on their Commission on Economic Justice. He is the co-author of Owning the Future (Verso, 2022) and Planet on Fire (Verso, 2021).

Sarah Nankivell

Deputy Director

Sarah is experienced in research and operations leadership. Before joining Common Wealth, she was Assistant Director of Operations at Forensic Architecture, founding Operations Manager and Advisory Board member at Forensis e.V, and a founding Trustee of Equidem. Sarah is a graduate of the University of Toronto (BSc) and the University of Cambridge (MPhil).

Chris Hayes

Chief Economist

Chris is an economist and data analyst. He has previously worked at the OECD, the Institute for the Future of Work and in the private sector as a commercial media analyst. He holds an MSc from the Stockholm School of Economics.

Melanie Brusseler

US Programme Director

Melanie researches green democratic planning and macrofinance. She lives in the US and supports transatlantic collaboration. Prior to Common Wealth, she worked at E3G and the Democracy Collaborative’s Next System Project. Melanie studied global political economy at Penn State and Columbia, but she has learned the most from lurking on Twitter.

Alex Williams

Principal Economist

Alex is a US-based macroeconomist working on the theory and practice of fiscal stabilisation. He has an MSc in Economic Theory from the Levy Institute at Bard College on the work of JM Keynes in context of the 2008 economic crisis, as well as a BA Economics from McGill University. Before Common Wealth, Alex worked at Employ America to keep full employment central to the US pandemic response.

Sophie Flinders

Senior Data Analyst

Sophie is an experienced data analyst whose work focuses on financial analysis and health systems. They have also worked as a research assistant at the Nuffield Trust, an analyst at NHS England and a policy administrator at Health Education England. Sophie holds a BSc in Mathematics and Philosophy from the University of York.

Khem Rogaly

Principal Research Fellow

Khem researches militaries and military industries, their political economy, and their role in climate crisis. He also collaborates with workers to explore repurposing parts of the military sector for green manufacturing. Previously, Khem worked at E3G and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. He holds an MPhil in World History and a BA in History from the University of Cambridge.

Eleanor Shearer

Senior Research Fellow

Eleanor’s research focuses on democratising corporate governance, developing technology for public good and the need for reparations for historic injustice and damages from climate change. She has an MPhil in Political Theory from the University of Oxford, where she focused on the case for reparations for Caribbean slavery. She is also a historical novelist, writing about the aftermath of slavery and what it means to be free.

Sacha Hilhorst

Senior Research Fellow

Sacha researches regional inequality, work and childcare, with an interest in the intersection between politics, economic change and everyday experience. She recently completed a PhD in Sociology at the LSE. Prior to that, she was a senior researcher at Demos.

Leela Jadhav

Researcher

Leela researches housing and military industries. Previously, she worked at Forensic Architecture, The Howard League, and JUSTICE, developing analysis of state and corporate accountability within criminal and civil frameworks, for arguments before the Court of Appeal, the ICC, and the ICJ. She holds an MA in Research Architecture from Goldsmiths and a BA in Law from the University of Oxford.

Adam Peggs

Senior Press and Digital Communications Officer

Adam’s areas of interest include the housing emergency, democratic ownership and the politics of working time. He has previously worked for the Royal Economic Society, the Progressive Economy Forum and in Parliament, and has written for Tribune, Red Pepper and the Huffington Post.

Amelia Horgan

Senior Editor & Democratising Work Lead

Amelia is an experienced writer, researcher and editor. She holds a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Essex, an MA in the History of Political Thought from the University of London and a BA in History from the University of Cambridge. Amelia is the author of Lost in Work (Pluto Press, 2021).

Sophie Monk

Senior Designer

Sophie is a designer based in Glasgow with a particular interest in graphic, web, editorial and information design. She also holds a PhD in Modern British History from the University of Brighton.

Bella Smith

Digital Officer

Bella is a Digital Officer with particular interests in social media, climate, memory, neurodiversity and Cornish politics. Bella has a BA in History from the University of Bristol where they came to specialise in public memory formation. She enjoys writing, reading and performing poetry and fiction.

Pinelopi Gardika

Administrator and Production Officer

Pinelopi is an architect and researcher whose work explores the intersections of cultural heritage, urban segregation and racial discrimination. As part of her practice, she has overseen the administration and digital communications for creative initiatives in Europe and the UK. She has previously worked with Forensic Architecture in London, the creative platform bladr in Copenhagen and the design collective K41.

Adrienne Buller

Associate Fellow

Before becoming an associate fellow, Adrienne was Common Wealth's Director of Research and led our work on asset manager capitalism. She previously worked on the finance project at InfluenceMap and holds an MSc in Global Governance from UCL. Adrienne is the author of The Value of a Whale (Manchester University Press, 2022) and, with Mathew Lawrence, co-author of Owning the Future (Verso, 2022).

Mika Minio-Paluello

Mika co-leads on industry, energy and climate at the Trades Union Congress, including co-managing TUC-NEON's Worker-led Transition project to future-proof high-carbon manufacturing jobs. She also co-runs Transition Economics, a consultancy providing economic modelling and analysis for a just, rapid climate transition.

Juliet Michaelson

Juliet is Co-Director at the climate charity Possible where she leads on organisational development. She has had previous roles at People's Economy, the New Economy Organisers Network and the New Economics Foundation, where she headed up a programme of research and advocacy work on wellbeing economics.

Michelle Meagher

Michelle Meagher is a competition lawyer, activist and author of the book Competition is Killing Us, which was chosen as a Financial Times Best Economics Book of the Year 2020. She is the co-founder of Europe's first anti-monopoly organisation, the Balanced Economy Project. She is a Senior Policy Fellow at the UCL Centre for Law, Economics and Society, and Senior Fellow on Monopoly and Corporate Governance at SOMO (the Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations).

Divya Siddarth

Divya is the co-founder of the Collective Intelligence Project, a research organisation that advances collective intelligence capabilities for the democratic and effective governance of transformative technologies. She was formerly associate political economist and social technologist at Microsoft, and also holds positions as the Ethics in AI Institute in Oxford and at the Plurality Lab at Harvard’s Safra Center for Ethics.

Ed Collins

Ed is Director of LobbyMap at InfluenceMap, an independent non-profit think tank based in London. Ed joined InfluenceMap in 2015, focusing on the development of a pioneering approach to assessing the private sector's climate impact by measuring corporate advocacy and lobbying. Prior to joining InfluenceMap, Ed studied social sciences at the University of Manchester and the London School of Economics.

Miriam Brett

Miriam is one of the Co-Directors of Future Economy Scotland. She is a Board Member of Green New Deal Rising and a Resesearch Fellow at WEAll Alliance and Democracy Collaborative. She has preiously worked for Bretton Woods Project and Common Wealth, as Director of Research and Advocacy.

Sahil Dutta

Sahil is a lecturer and researcher in political economy at Goldsmiths, focusing on financialisation, money, managerialism, and the political economy of Britain. He is a founding member of the Warwick Critical Finance Group and an associate member of the Politics of Money Research Network.

Immy Kaur

Immy is a co-founder and Director of CIVIC SQUARE, a public square, neighbourhood lab, and creative + participatory platform focused on regenerative civic and social infrastructure within neighbourhoods. She was also a founding director of Impact Hub Birmingham (2015-2019).

Aditya Chakrabortty

Aditya is a Guardian columnist and senior economics commentator. He is working on his first book, to be published by Allen Lane/Penguin.